The Legends (1956-1972)

Here are the 5km split-times from the legendary bicyclists Ercole Baldini, Roger Riviere, Ferdinand Bracke, Ole Ritter and Eddy Merckx.
Riviere, Bracke and Ritter had nearly the same speed during the first 15 km, then Ritter increased his speed.
Note that Roger Riviere had a defect between 35 and 40 km. He still managed to reach 47,346 km but would have reached probably a distance close to 48 km .
Jaques Anquetil's record of 47,493 km from the 27.09.1962 is not shown because he did not appear at the drug test.

DIST	Baldini 19.09.56	Riviere 23.09.58	Bracke 30.10.67	Ritter 10.10.68	Merckx 25.10.72
5 km	06'30''	06'11''	06'10''	06'11''	05'55''
10 km	12'56''	12'22''	12'21''	12'21''	11'53''
15 km	19'25''	18'36''	18'36''	18'33''	18'01''
20 km	25'52''	24'50''	24'53''	24'42''	24'07''
25 km	32'19''	31'07''	31'08''	30'47''	30'10''
30 km	38'44''	37'28''	37'26''	36'59''	36'17''
35 km	45'12''	43'50''	43'43''	43'10''	42'25''
40 km	51'41''	50'36''	49'58''	49'17''	48'32''
45 km	58'10''	57'00''	56'11''	55'27''	54'38''
1 hour	46,393 km	47,346 km	48,093 km	48,653 km	49,431 km

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• Ole Ritter videos on Youtube: "The Impossible Hour" Movie directed by Jorgen Leth (about the 1974 attempts)
  Part 1 (including 1968 attempt)              Part 2                   Part 3                    Part 4              Part 5

• A story about Ole Ritter on cyclingnews: "Ole Ritter - The mysterious hour record setter"
   

• Eddy Merckx hour record  video on Youtube

• "Eddy and the hour" by Owen Mulholland

• More from Eddy Merckx's hour record on my UCI hour record page

Ole Ritter

Eddy Merckx Link to "L'Equipe"

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